


Ardently

by somuchforbaggles



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Hate to Love, M/M, References to Jane Austen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 16:49:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4229430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somuchforbaggles/pseuds/somuchforbaggles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The abhorrent first proposal of Mr Novak, and the second, more favourable, implied proposal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ardently

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gothicmiriel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gothicmiriel/gifts).



> Once upon a time, I wrote a Pride and Prejudice deancas au. I was pretty unsatisfied with it, as it was my first work, and it needed a lot of rewriting, so I deleted it. But to this day, I’m glad I posted it. Why? Because through that, an enthusiastic commenter became my best friend. So this one has always been, and is most definitely for you, Miriel. Happy birthday <3
> 
> As for the rest of you, I hope you can surmise what’s happening with the smallest of context!
> 
> P.S. Ignore the blatant plagiarism, and see it more of a homage.
> 
> (character breakdown in the end notes)

Left alone to stew on Mr Novak’s actions (through Colonel Milton’s mouth) that _‘There were some very strong objections towards the man’,_ Dean thumbed through all the letters Sam had written to him since he’d been visiting Sandover. If Sam was aware of Mr Novak’s forced separation of him and Miss Moore, his hand gave no indication. There were no complaints, no retelling of incidents, no sign that Sam was anything but content. Even when Dean read between the lines, there was only an overlying sense of uneasiness, one that could be similarly described with being aware that one had forgotten something important.

Dean read them again, Mr Novak’s disgraceful boast fresh in his mind. It did nothing but redden his face from held breath and set his chest puffing when the breath escaped. A minor consolation was that Mr Novak’s visit to his aunt at Nevaeh would cease the day after the next, and a major consolation was that Dean would be returning home in under a fortnight. Sam loved to talk about their feelings, and for once Dean would humour him.

However, Dean was not consoled for long. The doorbell rang, and though he was almost a-flutter to greet Colonel Anna Milton as she walked in, he met with Mr Castiel Novak instead.

Dean stood, the letters fisted in his hand. His heart sped up upon seeing the man, more so than it did when he was almost a-flutter.

“Mr Winchester.” Novak nodded. Dean did not nod back. “You are well, I hope?”

“I’m not unwell,” replied Dean, dropping to his seat for effect. He hoped Mr Novak was stabbed with the icicles that grew on his words, though it was ungentlemanly.

Parting his sinful lips (sinful for their sins, not their shape or colour, sinful though they were too) and pausing, Mr Novak smoothed the ruffles of his poet shirt. _To warm his cold heart,_ Dean thought.

“I hoped to hear the opposite.”

Novak sat then, only to stand and pace the room shortly thereafter. He paced and sat, paced and sat, and continued his dizzying cycle for a few minutes while Dean did nothing short of stare expectantly. At last, Mr Novak settled on standing before him, his erratic eyes finally rooting themselves in Dean’s.

“I have struggled in vain, and it will not do. My feelings refuse to be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”

As though Dean’s mind was a letter in which his youngest brother Adam over punctuated, exclamation marks and question marks alike filling the pages of his head. It could only be translated with a quizzical and startled stare, as well as Dean’s cheeks flaring the colour of soldiers jackets. Apparently, Mr Novak considered this a sufficient foundation to build his house of nonsensical paragraphs on, for he continued:

“I have long felt these… feelings, and though they oppose my upbringing and the wishes of my family and myself, they demand to be felt, no matter how irrational. And that is only the beginning of my struggles. Your family’s status would no doubt ruin mine, but my passionate regard for you has unwillingly, impossibly overcome my doubts. It is with that that I beg you so relieve my suffering and consent to be my husband.”

Dean had wondered about the man’s social capabilities before, but to this he was incredulously. To _this,_ to _that_ proposal, that which was even less favourable than Mr Adler’s, Mr Novak expected an agreeable response?

“If I could feel gratitude towards your proposal, Mr Novak, I would thank you now. If I were more concerned with your family’s wealth rather than your words, I would accept. But I can neither thank you nor accept your hand.”

Novak started at this, his blue eyes honestly surprised, and his knuckles matching the marble of the mantlepiece they were gripping.

Dean was not finished. “I have never intended to cause pain to anyone. Your pain was unconsciously felt to me, and I hope it will be of short duration. But, seeing as your struggles have been so great, perhaps they will overcome your feelings, as you have hoped.”

Every twitch of Mr Novak’s discountenance was shown in his expression, which was rather agape. They were the kind of twitches that threatened Dean’s very existence, but Dean swallowed his apprehension and raised his chin in defiance, daring the man to reply if he ever gained the composure.

Once Mr Novak gained it, he spoke in a clipped and gritted manner, still gripping the mantlepiece, and barely met Dean’s eyes.

“This is the reply in which I am honoured with? A discourteous, ungrounded rejection? With not even the endeavour at civility?”

“Me? Discourteous, and uncivil? If you believe you are no more of those words than I am, I do not wonder why you consider my rejection ungrounded,” Dean said, finding himself surprisingly collected. “I have every reason in the world to rebuff your affections, let alone think ill of you. You tell me you love me against your will, your reason, and your character, and you call me uncivil? Even if your proposal had been favourable, do you think that would tempt me to marry the man who has been the core reason of ruining my brother’s chances of happiness with the woman he loves?”

Novak was pale no more as colour rose to his face, imitating that of a grape.

“You can’t deny it; your unjust, ungenerous, damn right _deplorable_ behaviour towards their courtship. You divided them, exposing one to the true cruelty of the world and the other to its ridicule for disappointed hopes, and both to misery.”

A smirk dared to cross Mr Novak’s face, and he pushed off from the mantlepiece, arrogance once again filling his smug countenance.

Still, a pose neither confirmed nor denied his part in Sam and Jess’s unhappiness, and a fleck of outraged saliva clung to Dean’s lower lip when he demanded, “Can you deny it?”

“I can’t deny it, and I have no wish to,” Mr Novak told him, setting Dean seething even more so. “I did everything in my power to refute their… courtship, as you call it, and I rejoice in their separation. I have been kinder to her than I have been to myself,” he added.

Dean swallowed the impolite words he had for the man and continued in reproaching his actions.

“It’s not just that debacle in which my dislike for you is founded. There’s the matter of Mr Michael Milligan, and the impression of you he gave, long before I decided my thoughts on you. What have you to say to that? How can you excuse your behaviour?”

“You take a great interest in that _gentleman’s_ concerns,” spat Novak, his eyes flashing.

“How can one help interest, with misfortunes such as his?”

“His misfortunes?!” It was a burst of emotion like nothing Dean had seen of Mr Novak before. It was a contemptuous, almost rhetorical exclamation, and had Dean sitting straighter. “Yes, his _misfortunes_ have been great indeed.”

Dean’s composure was lost as his tongue wriggled free, and he exclaimed in return, “And you afflicted them upon him! Where once he was your equal, he is in poverty compared to you, and all because you coveted the advantages meant for him. You have deprived him of his true life, and you treat his undue misfortunes with derision.”

“And this is your opinion of me,” said Novak flatly. “The estimation in which you hold me.” He shook his head. “Thank you for explaining it so thoroughly. According to your interpretation, my faults and flaws are many and heavy.”

Novak advanced nearer Dean, a bitterness souring his words as he continued in an escaped afterthought, “But perhaps they would have been overlooked, had I not unintentionally wounded your pride upon our first acquaintance, or wounded your pride yet again upon my proposal. I am not ashamed of my feelings, but did you expect me to willfully neglect to realise your lack of qualifications to be my husband? Or to forgive your poor connections and family’s inferiority?”

A beat passed, but it was not a lull. The energy of the argument swept them both away as though it were the sea and they men overboard, and Dean was the next to produce a wave to drown the other.

As cool as he’d been when Mr Novak asked of his health, he had no problem in consciously causing pain when he revealed:

“I wouldn’t have accepted you if you’d spared me the reminder of my inferiority, if you’d have behaved as Miss Moore did on our first meeting, or even if you’d behaved in a gentlemanlike manner. In fact, there is not one way you could have proposed that would have tempted me to say yes.”

Mr Novak’s weight shifted to his back foot, but Dean let another wave wash over the man, if he could be called one.

“From the first moment we were acquainted, your manners, arrogance, and disdain of others were incapable of being forgotten or forgiven, and even from that first moment, you were the last man I would ever agree to marry.”

Coloured and avoiding Dean’s stark gaze, Novak prevented him from speaking further on the matter. “You have said enough, Mr Winchester,” he said, moving swiftly to the door, “I now understand your contempt and feelings perfectly, and admit to be ashamed of mine. Forgive me for taking up so much of your time, and at least accept my wishes for your health and happiness.”

With that, Mr Novak bowed and left the house, and Dean knew not what to do but let his anger bubble until it spilled from his eyes.

* * *

Months and several changes in judgement later, after Dean learnt of Mr Novak’s involvement with Adam’s marriage to Mr Milligan and after Hester de Lane’s insistence that Dean refuse Mr Novak’s hand should it be offered again, they walked together, having being given a wide berth by their friends and family.

Mr Novak’s dark hair was shaped by the breeze, as it had only been on a few occasions, and Dean found it quite endearing. It humanised him again, much like seeing him with his younger brother, and soon Dean could not help but fill the silence with his thoughts of the past few weeks.

Dean spoke of his former poor behaviour, of his gratitude, of the letters, on Sam’s happy engagement. Mr Novak was different, though his feelings were unchanged. He was softer, more amiable. Less reprehensible, and more loveable.

Dean loved him. He loved him not for his wealth, but for his willingness to be humbled, his new found ease, and the lengths he went to be forgiven at Dean’s speed. Dean loved him, and it felt as natural as loving Sam.

“I dared to hope,” admitted Mr Novak, “I dared to hope that your feelings were changed. I knew if you were still decided against me, you would have openly acknowledged it to Lady Hester without hesitation. But you didn’t.”

He glanced at Dean, and much like their glances at Mr Novak’s home, Elysium, life stilled around them.

Still, their glances had never stopped Dean from acting unfazed before, and he was hardly to let a loving glance stop him now.

“Especially since I had no trouble so frankly insulting you to your face, I would have no issue relating it to your family,” he said, throwing a teasing expression to the man beside him.

Mr Novak laughed, and Dean fell further.

“I deserved everything you said.” Remorse laced Mr Novak’s voice, and it was deeper and quieter than usual. “Though I don’t agree with everything they were founded on, I spoke to you and treated you abominably, and it’s unpardonable.”

“We can share the shame of that afternoon,” Dean said, his walk slowing. “But I think that since, we have both become more civil.”

That eked a smile out of the both of them, and Mr Novak’s eyes wandered from the path to Dean’s again when he said, “And I ardently hope we will become more civil.”

They shared a glance again, though it was more of a gaze than a glance, and their hands grazed one anothers on their pendulumic swing. Their fingers caught together upon their return, and wound together in illicit harmony.

It was not first impressions that mattered most at all, nor second nor third nor even fourth. In fact, Dean would have gone so far as to rebuke impressions altogether, and tell all to rather rely on learning the person.

And there was still so much learning he needed to do of Castiel.

**Author's Note:**

> Dean - Elizabeth Bennet  
> Castiel - Mr Darcy  
> Sam - Jane Bennet  
> Jess - Mr Bingley  
> Michael - Mr Wickham  
> Adam - various Bennet sisters  
> Anna - Colonel Fitzwilliam  
> Hester - Lady Catherine
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this little bit of closure if you followed the story back then! And for those of you who didn't, I hope you enjoyed it anyway :)


End file.
